A BIRMINGHAM man was battered to death at his home by a man he picked up for sex, a court heard.

Birmingham Crown Court was told that Florian Baboi fled to his native Romania after killing David McArthur at the dead man’s address in Woodbroke Grove, Northfield, last August.

He was returned to the UK after handing himself in to the British Embassy in Bucharest the following month, said Graham Reeds QC, prosecuting.

He said Baboi, 35, of Izons Street, West Bromwich, met openly-gay Mr McArthur, a 63-year-old quantity surveyor, on August 19 in Lower Essex Street, part of Birmingham’s gay quarter.

“They had gone back to Woodbrooke Grove for the purposes of sex,” he said.

“Once there consensual sexual activity took place and, after that, the defendant battered David McArthur, kicking and stamping on his head and chest before leaving him for dead, half-naked, at the foot of the stairs in the hallway of his home,” said Mr Reeds.

The next day, he said, commuters saw Baboi, who appeared drunk and whose hands and clothes were stained with blood, waiting at a bus stop on Bristol Road.

Mr Reeds said Baboi asked a man, who had seen him the night before with Mr McArthur, for money and to use his phone to call a taxi.

After taking the bus to the city centre he took a taxi to the home he shared with two other Romanians, telling one of them he had “hit a gay man” who refused to give him money, he said.

Mr Reeds said Baboi took a bus to Romania and police who searched the address where he had been staying found a watch he had stolen from the victim.

Baboi has denied murdering Mr McArthur between August 19 and 23 last year.